Biographies
"E"
CHARLES H. EDWARDS
Success is the natural prerogative of such valiant spirits as this
prominent and honored member of the bar of Idaho's capital city. He has
been dependent upon his own resources from early youth by his own
exertions gained an excellent academic and professional education. He
has been engaged in the practice of his profession at Boise since the
1st of January, 1907, and has gained specially high reputation in the
department of criminal law. Within the period of his residence in Idaho
he has a record for having lost a less number of cases than any other
member of the bar of the state,—a fact definitely vouching for his fine
talent as a trial lawyer and for his scrupulous care and fidelity in
the presentation of his causes.
Charles H. Edwards was born on a farm in Texas county, Missouri, on the
2nd of May, 1875, and is a son of Samuel E. and Mary (Evans) Edwards,
the former a native of Illinois and of Welsh lineage, and the latter a
native of Tennessee. The Evans family is supposedly of English origin,
though the name suggests Welsh extraction, and the mother of Charles H.
Edwards was a child at the time of her parents' removal from Tennessee
to Missouri, where her father became a substantial agriculturist. He
enlisted in defense of the Union at the time of the Civil War and
sacrificed his life in the cause.
Samuel E. Edwards likewise became a prosperous farmer and stock-grower
in Texas County, Missouri, where he continued to reside until his
death, on the 8th of December, 1911, at the age of sixty years, and
where his widow still maintains her home. Six sons and three daughters
survive the honored father, who was a man of industry and sterling
character. He served as a soldier of the Union during the major part of
the war between the north and the south, and was a member of Company B,
Forty-seventh Missouri Volunteer Infantry, with which he participated
in many important engagements. He showed his continued interest in the
more gracious associations of the Civil War by retaining membership in
the Grand Army of the Republic, and in politics he was a stalwart
supporter of the principles and policies for which the Republican Party
has long stood sponsor.
The boyhood days of Charles H. Edwards were passed on the old homestead
farm, and in the meanwhile he duly availed himself of the advantages
afforded in the district schools. Determined to secure broader
education, he borrowed money to defray his expenses while attending the
high school at Mountain Grove, Wright county, Missouri. He continued to
be employed at farm work until he had attained to the age of eighteen
years, and in this connection had full fellowship with arduous toil, as
he worked from daylight till ten o'clock at night, the while his
initial stipend was only ten dollars a month. The financial resources
of his father were not sufficient to give the youth more than nominal
aid in his ambitious efforts to secure a liberal education, but Mr.
Edwards himself created the instrumentalities by which he compassed the
desired end.
He was a student for one year in West Plains College, at Howell County,
Missouri, and in the meanwhile he began to teach in the country schools
of his native state during the summer seasons. By this means he
defrayed the expenses of his own higher educational work. His first
service in the pedagogic profession brought to him a recompense of only
twenty dollars a month, and out of this he paid his living expenses and
managed to save an appreciable part of his meager salary. He continued
his labors as a successful and popular teacher for a period of seven
years, and in the meanwhile began the study of law, which he carried
forward with characteristic energy and discrimination, with the result
that he eventually proved himself eligible for the profession of his
choice. At Houston, the judicial center of his native county, he was
admitted to practice in the various courts of Missouri, on the 16th of
May, 1899.
He initiated the practice of law in Texas County and later established
his home at Hartville, the capital of Wright County, Missouri, where he
built up a substantial practice. In 1901 he completed a special course
in the Law Department of the University of Missouri, at Columbia, and
thereafter he continued in the general practice of law at Hartville
until the autumn of 1904, when he was elected county attorney of Wright
County. He retained this office two years and proved a most able and
popular public prosecutor.
Soon after the expiration of his term Mr. Edwards came to Idaho, and in
January, 1907, he established his permanent home in Boise, where his
success in the work of his profession has been of unequivocal order.
For a period of one year he was associated in practice with Gardiner G.
Adams, who is now serving as justice of the peace, and since the
dissolution of this alliance he has continued an individual practice,
in which he gives special attention to criminal law. Within a period of
three years he has lost no jury cases, and, as previously stated, his
record in the winning of the causes which he has presented before court
or jury since coming to Idaho has not been excelled by any other lawyer
in the state.
From the age of eighteen years to the present time Mr. Edwards has been
an active worker in behalf of the cause of the Republican Party, and he
admirably defends the principles and policies which he thus advocates.
He is an appreciative and valued member of the Ada County Bar
Association and is affiliated with Boise Lodge, No. 2, Free and
Accepted Masons; Ada Chapter, No. .8, Order of the Eastern Star; Ada
Lodge, No. 3, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the latter's
adjunct organization of the Daughters of Rebekah. He has been specially
interested in the Eastern Star Branch of the Masonic Fraternity, and in
1910 he had the distinction of serving as grand patron of its grand
chapter in Idaho. Mr. Edwards is a bachelor and apparently remains
"heart-whole and fancy-free." He has gained a host of loyal friends in
the state of his adoption and is one of the vigorous and representative
members of its bar, as well as a liberal and progressive citizen. His
success and precedence are the more gratifying to note by reason of the
fact that they stand as the concrete results of his own ability and
well-ordered endeavors.
[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME
II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to
Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]
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